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So, due to an unusually busy day at work, I’m a little behind on things. I haven’t had a chance to fully process all of the things from my conversation with the mayor last night, but I’ll start and see where it takes me.
First off, I want to thank my friend Jerome aka @jeromethink for joining in the call and lending his thoughts and voice to the debate. I appreciate him a ton. Second, I have to acknowledge that Mayor Frey made time in his schedule on a Sunday night to have this discussion.
We talked for about an hour, from 7 pm until 8 pm. There were a few times when the mayor’s phone dropped the call, but he was prompt in calling us back. We talked about police reform vs abolition, the charter amendment proposed by the city council,
and policies the mayor and the police chief have enacted or proposed to reform policing in Mpls.
Things the mayor reiterated: He does not favor abolishing the police. He believes the MPD can be reformed. He think the charter amendment is faulty because it would put too many
Things the mayor reiterated: He does not favor abolishing the police. He believes the MPD can be reformed. He think the charter amendment is faulty because it would put too many
people in charge of the police department (he made the “14 bosses” argument repeatedly). He does favor removing the minimum requirement for number of police officers from the city charter. He acknowledged that there is a toxic culture of policing in the MPD that needs to change.
He also repeated that the arbitration process for fired/disciplined police in MN is the biggest obstacle we face in making meaningful change to the culture at MPD because over 50% of fired officers are reinstated.
Mayor Frey also clarified that his vision for the MPD new officer mentorships would pair new officers with officers who don’t have “shitty records,” ie use of force complaints. He acknowledged that this could have been better explained and wasn’t clear in the @StarTribune story.
This is apparently what he meant by me havingquite a bit of misinformation- this is the only time in our conversation he addressed that term. So I guess the misinformation is miscommunication between him and the press? Idk.
When we were discussing the charter amendment, Jerome and I both pushed back on the “14 bosses” argument. Jerome doubted that the amendment would create real confusion for Chief Arradondo; and raised the issue of equity in terms of constituency that elects the mayor/at-large
candidates (those elections are almost always decided by high voter turnout areas which tend to be the wealthier, least diverse parts of the city). The mayor stated flatly that the first argument was wrong and that the confusion happens all over. He never offered specifics about
that, however (more on this argument later). He did acknowledge that Jerome was right about the equity argument, and didn’t have a counter to that. I brought up other city functions (specifically the school board) that report to a superintendent as well as a council/board,
seemingly without that confusion. I used the example of principals not being given different directions from different school board members, etc. Mayor Frey had no counter for that, either. But he also didn’t drop his objection to the amendment based on that.
I asked how the policy changes like requiring reporting of de-escalation methods, body cam footage review, and mentorships would change the entrenched culture of “toxic policing” since police have been shown time and again to falsify reports to protect themselves, and where the
accountability and consequences would come from. I used the specific example of MPD’s initial statement on the death of George Floyd as an example. Unless I missed it (and I don’t think I did), the mayor didn’t give an answer to that, he just acknowledged that the MPD statement
was bad.
Another interesting statement that Mayor Frey made was that almost everyone in the Black and brown community is against the abolition of the MPD. When Jerome (rightly) said that can’t be true, Mayor Frey amended that to say he meant the Black peoples he has spent a lot
Another interesting statement that Mayor Frey made was that almost everyone in the Black and brown community is against the abolition of the MPD. When Jerome (rightly) said that can’t be true, Mayor Frey amended that to say he meant the Black peoples he has spent a lot
of time talking with on the North side. He mentioned Nekima Levy-Armstrong specifically, and other Black political leaders (I was trying to take notes and missed the other names) to back up his claim. When Jerome pushes back again, Mayor Frey admitted that was just anecdotal.
But I think it illustrates an important bifurcation in the mayor’s thinking- rather than acknowledging the THOUSANDS of people who were protesting the MPD’s abuses and murder of citizens for so long after George Floyd was killed, he falls back on the political establishment that
supports his view. He also brought up Mayor Melvin Carter from St. Paul, saying that Mayor Carter doesn’t support police abolition either (this is not a strong counter argument in my opinion).
Jerome did an amazing job of telling stories about his family and talking about how his children, who are both very young, are already growing scared of police. He grounded all of this policy and political debate in the humanity of the people who are most impacted.
Mayor Frey expressed sympathy for that, and when Jerome asked him to be bold and propose radical change that was in his purview, Mayor Frey agreed that what was needed. He again mentioned the arbitration problem and state legislation limiting what Mpls can do. Then something else
interesting happened. When Jerome asked what bold policies the mayor had planned, Jacob put it back on us and said he wants to hear proposals FROM PEOPLE LIKE US. Let me repeat that: HE WANTED TO KNOW WHAT POLICY WE WOULD PROPOSE.
Number one, neither of us spent tons of money to be elected as mayor. Two, organizations like @reclaimtheblock and @MPD_150 have done tons of this work and developed policy that has been presented to the mayor. Finally, I guess that means we should all be sending him our policy
suggestions now, since he has stated that he wants to hear from us. This also ties to back to the lack of specifics I mentioned earlier. This time I pushed back and asked for him to list specific bold, transformative policies and action he would commit to. His first response was
to bring up the arbitration laws. I pointed out that is out of his control. So he brought up things like body cam usage, mentorships, and removing the minimum number of police from the city charter (again, I was taking notes & may have missed something here- I’m no @WedgeLIVE).
That’s pretty much everything I have in my notes from the discussion. I will say that the mayor was (as always) affable and polite, and he did take time out of his weekend to talk to two people who have had criticism for him in the past. I give him credit for that.
Having said that, though, there was nothing articulated that leads me to believe the mayor has a plan to radically transform the MPD. And that means it’s back on us, the citizens, to find every method we can to force change. We have to do it ourselves.
